Goal of Marketing: To Confuse the Consumer??

Do you ever get the feeling that some marketers are just trying to confuse you into making decisions that you don’t really want to make? After a quick stop at a Burger King, I definitely got that feeling myself.

Remember how fast food restaurants used to price their value meals? There used to be medium (which was small), large (which was medium), and super-size (which was large). We all learned that and got comfortable with it.

Then the movie “Super-Size Me” came out and everyone said, “wait – eating super size fast food meals is bad for me?? Who knew…”

In response, fast food places went back to “small, medium, and large” That was nice, because now you could order the actual size of meal you wanted without a secret decoder ring.

The other day I was on the road early so I stopped in a Burger King to grab a quick bite. Looks like the King is changing the rules again.

Their breakfast meal sizes:

1. The smallest size had no name. I guess if you just order a meal, you get the smallest size, but they don’t call it small. This campaign must have been designed by men.
2. The next biggest size (what you, I, or anyone with a remote command of the English language, would call “medium”) was labelled as “new small.” That’s right, the middle size was the “new small.” I guess if pink can be the new black, medium can be the new small..
3. The third, and largest, size was – you guessed it – “new medium.” So large is now new medium.

What.

The.

Heck?!

Why can’t things just be labeled as they are? Is that so wrong?

I can think of only three reasons for this new labeling method:

The Burger King marketing folks are idiots

As much as I would like to believe this, since their commercials with the King creep me out, I don’t think this is the case. I believe in the goodness of all people, and I have to believe that this can not be a campaign born out of stupidity…

Burger King is a dirty, dirty, lying cheat

It’s possible this campaign is based around the fact that a person may walk up to the counter and say, “I’d like a meal #1, small size please,” without looking closely at the new sizing scheme. This way the customer gets a bigger size than they actually wanted and BK pockets an additional $0.80.

Am I the only one who finds this incredibly unethical? Obfuscating your offerings to trick people into ordering something more expensive than they want??

Maybe I’ll try this strategy. I’ll re-name my DVD set a “book,” so when someone tries to order a $20 book they will instead get a $200 DVD set. I don’t forsee any problem with that.

I hope this is not their strategy. I really do. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if it is.

Burger King thinks (knows?) that people are stupid

I think this is the real reason.

BK knows that people are affected by labels. We all know the sizes are small-medium-large. But back when getting more bang for your buck was en vogue, they were relabeled, medium-large-super-size. Now that eating smarter and healthier is “in,” things are getting relabeled to “no name-small-medium.”

It’s still small, medium, and large!!

But BK knows someone’s going to walk in with the intention of getting a small (a real small) size meal, see the middle option labeled as “small,” and then decide to go with that option, thus getting more food and spending more money than they originally intended.

Sadly, I think they are right. I believe a majority of people will follow this pattern.

Don’t do it! Things are not their labels! As Billy Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

As a consumer, don’t fall into the trap of being fooled by misleading names. Pay attention to what things really are, and you will make much smarter decisions in everything you do.